PRO BASKETBALL

PRO BASKETBALL; Stockton Is Unrecognized, Unassuming, Unmatched

By IRA BERKOW,

Published: January 23, 1995

SALT LAKE CITY—
Like a typical tourist, the dark-haired man with the video camera and wife and their three small children in tow was filming the merry scene along crowded Las Ramblas, the heart of Barcelona, Spain, during the Olympic Games in 1992 when a woman caught his attention. She was a vision in red, white and blue, wearing a flowing scarf in the Stars and Stripes and a skirt of the same ilk and a T-shirt with an imprint of the Dream Team.

"Do you mind if I get you on camera?" the man asked her.

"Certainly not," said the woman.

"Are you a fan of the Dream Team?" asked the man.

"Oh yes," gushed the woman, "and I just saw Charles Barkley down the street! And I've seen Magic Johnson, too!"

"So have I," said the man.

"Are you American, too?" the woman asked. And just before the man replied, his son Houston, then 4 years old, pointed to a face on her shirt and said, "Daddy!"

The woman looked down at the shirt, and across at the man behind the camera. "Is that you?" she asked. "Are you John Stockton?"

"Well, yes," said John Stockton.

The woman flushed, a bit embarrassed. "I just saw Charles Barkley down the street!" she repeated. "And Magic Johnson, too!"

It was not news to John Stockton, point guard supreme, that he would go unrecognized -- even by a basketball fan -- for he often gets lost in crowds. Sometimes, he is so self-effacing as a team player that he seems, at 6 feet 1 inch and 175 pounds, to even vanish on a basketball court. Unless you watch carefully, appreciating the beauty of his simplicity, the deftness of his craft, the pure professionalism.

And next week, or within the next few games, he will be ever so unobtrusively, well, pass his former Dream Team teammate, Magic Johnson, as the career assists leader in the National Basketball Association.

"He's so good, you begin to take him for granted," said Karl Malone, the All-Star forward and Stockton's teammate on the Utah Jazz for 10 seasons. "I've just come to always expect the perfect pass from him, and I get it. And I was thinking not long ago, even I don't appreciate him as much as I should. And I know one day years from now when we're both retired, and I'm on a tractor on my ranch in Arizona, I'll get off and go to a phone and call him. And I'll just say, 'Damn, Stock, how ya doing?' "

Going into tonight's gamemon. night against Dallas, Stockton stood 44 assists behind Oscar Robertson ton and 78 behind Johnson, who compiled 9,921 assists in 874 games (Stockton has played 854 games), and is averaging 12.1 assists a game, slightly above his career average of 11.5. He is leading the league in this department, as usual -- well ahead of Kenny Anderson of the Nets at 10.5 -- and has been the league leader for the past seven seasons. If he wins it again this season, he will tie Bob Cousy for leading in assists in the most consecutive seasons. His Best Escape Is From Limelight

Stockton is the most uncommon of performers who favors that the limelight shine elsewhere. "I'd go to him with interview requests," said Bill Kreifeldt, former publicity director of the Jazz, "and he'd say, 'Let this guy do it, or that guy, they eat it up.' "

"He has to be the most unselfish athlete in any major sport," said Jim Chones, a color analyst for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who played 10 years in the American Basketball Association and the N.B.A. "He always looks to pass first -- to create -- and shooting is second. How he does it, and why he does it, is a lost art. This is deep."

One could no more imagine John Stockton dying his hair green, for example, or throwing a tantrum at a coach's decision, or beating his chest and howling after committing a good play than seeing him do something dumb on the court.

"I have an ego like everyone else," he said recently. "I want to be recognized as a good ballplayer." Even though he has been an All-Star for the past six seasons, and was named to the all-N.B.A. first team last season, he is only fifth in balloting for Western Conference guards for this year's All-Star Game. "Fifth was pretty good," he said, with a smile. "But does that voting really matter?"

"He's a small Magic Johnson," said K. C. Jones, the Hall of Fame backcourt man and current assistant coach of the Detroit Pistons. "He always seems to make the right decision at the right time. But every now and then he makes a boo-boo and you go, 'Wow!' "

"You get the impression that he's not all that quick, or strong," said David Benoit, a black Jazz teammate, "and he's not really flashy. I mean, his passes are usually straightforward, nothing behind the back, or between the legs, and rarely a no-look. I know that a lot of other point guards in the league, especially black guys, have said, 'I can take that little white guy.' And then he makes dead meat out of them."

Like who?

"Take your pick," Benoit replied.

"When I first came into the league," said Johnny Dawkins, a veteran point guard with the Pistons, "I thought I could take him pretty easily. But I learned that you can't relax for a second with him. He sees everything on the court, and he's aware of everything. You stand up for a moment and he's got that quick first step and he's got you on his hip, and he's either laying the ball in the hoop or dishing off to somebody for a basket. And then when you least expect it, when the game is on the line, he'll pull up for a 3-pointer and hit one at the buzzer." Determined or Dirty? Matter of Perspective